In Flanders Fields
by TheCompletlyAddictedBookworm
Summary: The poppies blow between the crosses, row on row. Remeberance Day fic


**This is a bit late for Remembrance Day itself but in sunny Britain we have a Remembrance service on the nearest Sunday as well.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia. Britain doesn't own John McCrae. The Canadians do.**

_In Flanders fields the poppies blow_

_Between the crosses, row on row_

_That mark our place; and in the sky _

_The larks, still bravely singing, fly _

_Scarce heard amid the guns below_

_We are the Dead. Short days ago_

_We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow_

_Loved and were loved, and now we lie_

_In Flanders fields_

_Take up our quarrel with the foe:_

_To you from failing hands we throw_

_The torch; be yours to hold it high. _

_If ye break faith with us who die _

_We shall not sleep _

_Though poppies blow_

_In Flanders fields _

A gentle breeze stirred the flowers, flicking them back and forth around the field. From a distance it looks as though it were the waves of a scarlet ocean, stretching for miles.

A man walks between the flowers, his fingers brushing the silken petals. A small polar bear walks beside him, silent as his master weaves his way along long forgotten paths.

Each step brings forth memories, of this place and others. An endless rush of memories, of pain and loss, of people he knew, both friend and enemy. All dead.

The wind picks up and sends the blood-flowers tumbling around bone white crosses. Too many. As he walks through the sea of twisting red, his blond hair obscuring his violet eyes, something silently cracks.

His feet moved faster as they made their way to a spot among the flowers. He stopped and turned round facing east, remembering what had been.

Once that place had been sunken, surrounded by walls of mud. The fire step. The man closed his eyes and let the river of memories flow over him.

A sentry posted at dawn. The sun rising in the east, over the German trenches light illuminating a muddy wasteland and endless coils of barbed wire with rotting bodies ensnared within. A rat scrambles over the mud, devouring those long dead.

_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_ eh?

What glory was there to be found dying in your millions in a muddy hole in France or Belgium?

None, none at all, just another lie, like '_It'll all be over by Christmas.' _Yeah 1918 and 20 million lives later.

Slowly the torrent ebbs. Two minutes spent standing to attention over an old firing step, buried under layers of mud. Two minutes at eleven o clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month remembering a war that had ended 92 years ago. 92 years, a human's lifetime, yet the man who remembered looked only 20.

He sighed and picked up the white bear that walked beside him, snagging one of the scarlet flowers in his fingers. He looked at it for a minute then replaced the paper and plastic one on his breast with the flower, letting the fake one fall on the spot he was standing. Then he strode west through the tumbling spirit-flowers towards an Englishman, an American, a Frenchman and a Belgian, all wearing poppies.

_Lest we forget_

**References:**

**In Flanders fields was written by John McCrae in May 1915 after the death of his friend. McCrae himself was a Canadian doctor hence why I used Canada.**

**Blood flowers/ spirit flowers: the poppies grow over places where the battles were fought. So in a way they represent each soldier's spirit.**

**Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: (Latin) It is great and good to die for your country. A piece of propaganda that the British government spread at the time (Canada was part of the British empire till after the war). Incidentally Wilfred Owens wrote a very bitter poem of that name.**

**AN: reviews would be greatly appreciated so please do so if you wish. I'll be back in December with a host of Christmas carols (and the truce of 1914. What? I'm doing ww1 in history.) and 2 things: 1. The British wear poppies too and 2. One last thought:**

**Golden lads and girls all must**

**As chimney sweepers come to dust**

**Shakespeare (don't know which play)**


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